Chapter Eighteen
IT COMES TWO days later.
The opportunity for me to run.
We’re in another camp, much like the first one, and once again, it’s the middle of the night with the fire burning low. This time I definitely know he’s sleeping, even though like always he’s propped up against a tree because his PTSD doesn’t let him sleep.
Except when he can smell you…
My heart clenches at the thought and what it means that he’s finally drifted off. But I ignore it and focus on his hand lying on his outstretched thigh. It’s limp, and I know that for sure because it’s tied to both of mine.
It’s his way of making sure I don’t run.
It’s also his way of killing me slowly, because every night before he ties me to him and every morning when he unties me, he makes sure to put an ointment on my wrists.
To make sure my skin doesn’t chafe. It’s torture, the way he cares for me one second and the next reminds me I’m nothing more to him than a pawn.
And if I was smarter—which I’m not, not where he’s concerned—I’d focus on only the pawn part.
As it is, I can’t, but I do tell myself to stop thinking about it right now.
He doesn’t know that for the past two days while he was tying me to himself, I was looking for a chance to break free, and I made a breakthrough today.
It was pure luck, but while washing up this morning, I found a piece of glass lying under the foliage.
And it’s a sharp piece, too, that I think will cut through this rope with only a little effort.
We reach Rawhide tomorrow. I always thought I’d be long gone before that, but here I am.
In any case, I need to make it this time, because as soon as we reach his ranch and he puts whatever twisted scheme he has for revenge into motion, he’s going to find out I’m not Peyton.
And I don’t even want to think about what he’ll do when that happens.
So I get to work. I very meticulously, with small motions so as not to alert him in any way, go about cutting the rope. Once free, I slowly get up and, as quietly as I can, walk out of the camp. And then, when it’s safe, I run.
With only the moon to guide me, I take off into the woods with that piece of glass in my hand.
I try to remember where we came from. I try to remember landmarks or signs, a fallen tree or a crooked branch, anything to tell me that I’m going in the right direction.
The direction where freedom lies. At this point, I don’t even know what it looks like, this far-fetched idea of freedom that I have, and I don’t even care.
All I care about is trying. So I keep zigzagging through the woods, ducking under branches, leaping over logs.
Sometimes landing on my feet; other times falling.
I skin my knees; I scrape my palms. I think I lose my makeshift weapon somewhere, too, but nothing is going to deter me.
Or so I think until my hurtling body comes to a jarring halt.
It’s a miracle I don’t fall face-first from my own high velocity, and now I’m standing in front of the one thing I hadn’t really given much thought to tonight. Or any night, to be honest. Mostly because he was always with me and I knew he’d protect me from something like that.
A bear.
A big black scary bear with glittering eyes.
I don’t know where it came from. Or maybe in my mad panic, I didn’t pay enough attention to watch where I was going and ended up in his path.
However it happened, I’m utterly petrified now.
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to think.
I don’t know how long I stand frozen, simply staring into the eyes of death.
Until I hear a low growl and I flinch, my heart jumping up in my throat.
The bear moves. Its paws thudding on the ground, crunching leaves, and I spin around and take off running once again. Only this time I’m running toward him. Because he’s the only one who can save me now.
What was I thinking? Why did I run away from him? Why didn’t I listen? I know he’s dangerous, but he’s the only one who’s ever made me feel safe. God, I’m such an idiot, and I’m going to die now.
I know it.
So I call out his name. “Arsen!”
And I don’t stop.
Arsen. Arsen. Arsen.
I use it as a chant, a prayer almost, that I send up to the night sky.
But I’m not sure if he or anyone up there can hear me over the stampeding feet of the beast chasing after me.
I’m just about ready to give up and let it take me when I crash into a tree.
Or something really, really hard. My body ricochets back, but before I can go down, the thing I crashed into—my kidnapper, my husband, the man I was calling out for, Arsen—catches me around the waist. He pins me to his hard body and saves me.
Just as it’s sinking in that he’s here, he’s really here, and I’m sagging with relief, I hear a loud crack. Followed by another and then one more.
Gunshots.
My body freezes, but my eyes are frantic. They go to his chest first; he’s breathing wildly, as if he’s been running too. Before I take in his shoulder, all alert and taut, and then his outstretched arm, which I follow all the way down to his hand that’s holding the gun.
It’s smoking. The gun, I mean.
It’s the first time I’ve seen something like that in real life, wisps of smoke coming out of the barrel.
I think this is also the first time I’ve seen a dead bear.
It’s lying on its side, and I can see three holes in its body.
One in its temple and two in the side, blood dripping from all of them.
Its eyes are open, though, just like its mouth, revealing sharp teeth shining in the night, and I have to look away.
Panting, I glance back at him. “You… Y-you came.”
His chest moves at my words, almost like a shudder, and he finally looks down at me.
His features are tight and sharp, but other than that, they’re blank as a slate.
I don’t care, though. I don’t care that I can’t read him.
That I can never read him. Or that he wants to use me for revenge, and I’m back to where I started for the third fucking time.
Maybe I’m not meant to leave him. Maybe I’m meant to be at his side. Till death do us part. I know it all sounds crazy, but I don’t care about that either. All I care about is that he’s here and he saved my life and I…
I throw my arms around him.
I wind them around his neck and without ever—ever—having done this move before, I hoist myself up on his body.
I jump up and my thighs go around his very narrow, very cut and muscular hips.
And he helps me. I feel his hands go under my butt so he can give me a boost and now I’m completely, irrevocably, wrapped around him.
Good. Perfect. This is exactly where I want to be.
With him.
I shove my face against his neck and breathe him in.
I breathe in his clean scent, ripe with sweat and musk, as I whisper, over and over, “You came. You came for me. You came… You…” I nuzzle my nose in his pulse.
“I was so scared. I was so… I thought I was going to die. I thought this was the end and… God, I can’t believe you have a gun.
I can’t believe you shot him. I can’t… You never said anything. You never…”
Both his arms are wrapped around my body, and at my words, both of them squeeze my waist. Almost suffocating me. It feels so good, getting my breaths cut off after breathing like crazy, that I melt into him even further. My body finally relaxes and my curves drape over his hard muscles.
That’s when he starts walking, but I have my nose buried in his neck and my fingers fisted in his hair so I don’t really pay attention to it all.
In fact, I think I close my eyes at some point, being lulled to sleep by immense relief and his rhythmic steps.
By his rising and falling chest; his arms that are still squeezing me, cutting off my air.
It’s glorious.
But it’s over too soon when he comes to a halt and forces us apart. He does it with a hard jerk, unlocking my limbs from around his body and putting me down on my feet. And while I’m blinking awake, trying to catch up to his abrupt actions, he spins me around.
I teeter on my feet, my shoulders crying out in pain at his rough ministrations. “What are you…”
I get my answer when I feel him sliding the rope around my wrists.
The coarse material chafes around my skin, but I don’t make a peep.
In fact, for a second, I feel comfort. I feel safe being his captive.
But then that illusion is quickly broken, too, when he ties the knot so tightly that a gasp escapes me.
My skin burns and I try to look behind me, but once again, he dominates my body with his and lifts up my now tied hands.
Again, he does it so hard that my shoulders scream in agony and tears of pain well up in my eyes. But I guess I should’ve saved them for what he does next.
He takes the long end of the rope he used to tie my hands and throws it up in the air. I watch it go over the branch of the tree up above before he catches the tail when it comes down. And then, I watch—no, I feel—him pull it down and down, that rope, as my arms go up and up and holy God, up.
Until my feet have almost left the ground and I’m up on my tiptoes.
Essentially, hanging me from the tree.
When he’s satisfied with how my body has been stretched and arranged, he takes the rest of the rope, throws it up and over the branch again, and makes a noose that he then finishes off with a knot.
Crazily, I think he’s so tall that he didn’t even have to stretch himself all the way up while doing that.
I also think I’m dreaming. That this is not real. I’m not really trussed up from a tree, my arms outstretched above me, my toes grazing the ground. It’s not my body that’s stretched to its limit, and it’s not my eyes burning with tears, not my heart that’s quaking.
Not my savior who’s done this to me.